andcurve.weblog - The weblog of Kevin Teljeur. Somewhere within all the noise, there is a note you need to hear.

Wow, it’s been a while. Since the twelth of October, no less, with apparently little for me to write much. This is true, more or less; I haven’t had too much to say about anything, but I haven’t had enough time to really make myself sit down and organise some writing, and to do what I need to do to get photos up on the site with my posts. Here’s the problem; I need to find a better way to organise my images, which works better than the way I’m doing it at the moment.
A view into the city, from the quays. The tall building is the soon-to-be-demolished Trade Union building; it may be ugly, but’s a landmark. Taken a couple of weeks ago. Click image to view larger version
In order to put up photos on this site, as part of my posts, I took an existing WordPress plug-in (WordPress being the piece of software that I use to run this site, which uses additional bits of code – plug-ins – to add extra functionality) and rewrote big chunks of it, as well as adding some image-enhancement routines pilfered from elsewhere. It’s crude but it works (just about). It’s also in use on www.ideasforcheapstuff.com, where Tee and the girls eventually got the hang of it’s arcane ways and started regularly putting up photos while writing about their adventures. Part of the problem (or problems, for there are many) with this plug-in is that the code is, quite simply, very, very bad. I fixed what I could, but… No, it’s not worth resuscitating. I actually set out (possibly on paper, I know I have it somewhere) the design for a newer, better image manager but that’ll take some doing. A lot of doing, in fact. And also, it solves one problem very well, which is the interface for how I select and manage images for putting into my posts, but doesn’t really deal with the bigger problem of how to deal with images generally. Should I manage the images myself, or should they be on a photo site somewhere?

So here are my options, and I’m curious to get some feedback (if anyone is actually still reading this site, fantastic!) on what people think I should do. It’s the number one issue holding me back on posting about my Romania story and other stuff besides, so let’s hear it!

• Go ahead and keep using the same, inefficient crap software.
  Not a great option, to be honest. This is using a lot of disk space, takes too much time and is going to cause me a lot of pain in the future. It’s just too much work, in so many ways, for dealing with photos.
• Write new software.
  Better. But, this will take time and again this is a problem. Also, it’s just a much better designed way of dealing with what is essentially the same problem as with the current problem; the photos are just getting dumped into my posts with no real life of their own. They’re not connected to anything. Just files.
• Use an image-management service
  Something like Flickr, or Zooomr. These are the hot new services/toys on the web for this kind of thing, the photos get shared with everyone, and if you pay money then you can put huge amounts of stuff up there. There are as many pros as cons to using a service like these, and if you are someone who uses these, then please tell me your opinion on those.
• Something else
  Is there another option? There must be, right? Or maybe you can think of one.

Anyway, share your opinions with me, I’m not sure what is the best way to deal with the avalanche of photos I see coming this way.

Boats at Howth Harbour. Real, actual fishing boats, which will no doubt be seeing a lot less action now that they can’t go and decimate the salmon population with drift-nets. Oh yes, I was there as part of getting out for a drive. With Tee. Taken on 29th October 2006. Click image to view larger version

Yeah, whooo! He doesn’t post for what seems like forever and a day, and then comes back again with links to stuff! As if anyone cares! Still, if you’re going to check out these links then prepare to possibly be offended. Yes, I have been busy, having all sorts of adventures and if you, the long suffering reader, are foolish enough to stick with it then you shall read of these adventures and maybe even see some photos.

B3ta: Google Religion Search
Google Religion search – the best search idea ever!
http://www.b3ta.com/board/5792028
Really, it speaks for itself when you see this image. Make sure you check it out carefully because some of the touches are quite subtle and every bit as hilarious as the obvious ones. www.b3ta.com
This is a great site. It’s a bulletin board where people post images, either ones they’ve created or ones they’ve modified from photos or stills, animations even, and it kicks off from there. Pure genius sometimes, in the best of subversive British humour, and frequently offensive to someone, somewhere, which of course I applaud.

B3ta: Spack-Rabbit
A truly offensive cartoon with rabbits!
http://www.b3ta.com/board/5787584
I’ve been laughing since last Friday, intermittently howling with laughter just at the very idea, and all because of this offensive cartoon on www.b3ta.com. Is it ever in poor taste! I couldn’t do it myself, because I would do it, laugh about it, show it to my friends and then never sleep again, as I lie there in the dark thinking with imeasurable guilt about the sheer badness of it (and the fact that I won’t be able to show my face in The Odeon bar again, though in fairness that’ll be no great loss, especially after my ‘spaz-dancing’ episode). If you haven’t figured out what ‘spack’ means just by looking at the cartoon, then maybe a quick trip to www.urbandictionary.com might clear it up for you…

Yulia Tymoshenko
The website of face of the Orange Revolution!
http://www.tymoshenko.com.ua/eng/
Imagine if she was your Prime Minister. Imagine if she was your local elected representative. I know what I’d do. I’d go round to her clinic or office or whatever and complain about the roads, the bins, the weather, the size of the squirrels, anything I could think of, just to sit there and gaze at her while she rants about legitimate democracy, people power, privatising natural resources to her friends in the power industry. I’d even try and keep my hands on the table! Well, more out of fear than respect, I’d say for all her sexy looks she’s a real nut-puncher, and I wouldn’t want to hang around in her bedroom the morning after a ‘democratic consultation’. Can you imagine that? “Did you feel the revolution last night? Did you not feel the thousand fireworks above us? Let us now storm the corrupt halls of power, and destroy the enemy! Democracy will prevail!!” “Ah here, I’m going to have a shower and go home.” I think the closest we have here in Ireland is probably Liz O’Donnell for the Reactionary Fascist party, and her dental work is nothing to be proud of.

Ok, I’m making light of what has been (and still is) a very serious situation in a country which should be as economically powerful as any in Western Europe and yet, due to Communism and corruption, is very poor and probably dangerous place to be. But look at her! Yum.

Scobleizer
Microsoft’s one man PR army, fighting for truth and integrity!
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
I’ve remarked (actually, I’m not sure it’s possible to remark when there is froth dripping from your mouth, but I’ll let it pass) about the possible conflict of interest when I am writing about something on this site which is work-related. Think about it, if the problem isn’t obvious already; I’m broadcasting my thoughts publicly through this site, and these ramblings are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and a halfway decent web-browser. So, if I write on this site that my (hypothetical; bear with me) colleague Eric is a homocidal crack-smoking moron, and I suspect strongly that he has been molesting badgers every night, then although it may not directly slanderous, then it could at least be picked up by customers who are checking my site out. And they do exist, apparently, even if they are a rare and endangered breed. They’re certainly not going to make themselves known to me but on the other hand they’ve been known to use Google from time to time, so who knows. Either way, it will affect their relationship with the company, because they’re going to be thinking about it, and probably send their work elsewhere, unless they have a soft spot for homocidal crack-smoking, possible badger-molesting morons. This is what would be termed a ‘sackable offence’.

Incidentally, that sort of thing doesn’t discourage me, partly because this blog is a fine example of how it is that I’m one of the few native English speakers in the company.

Already, you are no doubt wondering where all this is going. That is where Robert Scoble and his blog come into this ramble. Robert is blogging away about the technology industry on his WordPress site (like me, but people actually read his blog) and is well known to be working in Microsoft. He writes about what he does there, what he thinks of what they’re doing, and the Internet at large. Personally, while it’s not always fantastically interesting, and he obviously is entirely sympathetic to Microsoft, it’s not a bad blog to read about life on the inside. Particularly when he loses the plot a bit, which is what happened very recently (and you’ll have to read his site to see what happened there, but in a nutshell he lost it over some criticisms of the Windows release date). It was a bit edgy, given his high profile as an unofficial but widely-read Microsoft blogger (which could have public relations implications; again, the phrase ‘sackable offence’ springs to mind) but on the whole it was a lot more entertaining than the fluffy stuff his colleagues come out with on the Microsoft blogs, which tend to be very bland. Good on Robert, I hope he does it again.